Stories of murder, betrayal and kidnap thread through The Spinning Heart, Donal Ryan's debut, which is told from the points of view of 21 people struggling to get by in a rural village in contemporary south-west Ireland.

Compared to J M Synge and Patrick McCabe, praised by The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas author John Boyne and chosen to be the first novelist published by Doubleday Ireland, Ryan has a writing style that is perceptive, intimate and darkly comic, revealing the human cost of the financial crisis by creating a chorus of overlapping voices.

"I didn't really set out to write a recession novel or make a chronicle of our times," says the 36-year-old author. "It's just that I chose to describe the lives of a group of people in Ireland, so the recession had to feature strongly in the background. In most of our communities, it is the first topic of conversation and it shapes our perception of who we are."

Initially written in the summer of 2010, each interlinked chapter exposes the inner life of a different character, such as lonely single mother, Réaltín, and redundant construction workers Bobby and Vasya. "It's a bit of a knack that I have, to see past what people are saying," says Ryan. "They talk about their car or a football match but their mannerisms communicate other things and show the sadness of their experiences. You speak to people and sometimes they can be on the very verge of tears, because things have gone so disastrously wrong and they are so shaken. I wanted to express that in the novel."

Ryan was born in a village in North Tipperary and works for the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation in Limerick. In his 20s, he wrote in short bursts but having children gave him the motivation he needed to finish two novels. Ryan's second book, which was actually written first and is set almost a decade before The Spinning Heart, will be published in autumn 2013.